Standing On The Beach Vs Trying To Catch The New Wave De Jour

There’s an old saying about life and culture and, these days, even business, and that is “What goes around, comes around.

When it comes to communication, this is a very apt description of the idea that there are fundamentals in every communication process that are the bedrock of that process.

Over time new media come along and look attractive, but these new digital media like anything new that appears on the horizon, are subject to the the good old 80/20 Rule of Just About Everything, which clearly states that a maximum of 20% of these new media will be successful at helping you achieve a return on your investment in them, and 80%, sadly will not.

These are not great odds. And the decision to pursue these media or add them to the way you reach out to your prospects is further compromised by the ubiquitous propaganda being constantly disseminated by the digital marketing world, that this is this really is the future of communication as we know it.

However Dot Dot Dot

If you actually take a deep breath and think about these media and how they work, you will find that most of what they do is plug you into information loops that are constantly in motion.

Think of it as one of those carnival games where you have to shoot at ducks constantly moving. Very few people are actually good at knocking down even a few.

That’s what digital marketing, to a great extent, actually looks like.

It’s one of those ads that separate the paragraphs in an article you have linked to on some news or vertical industry site. It’s a static ad or video that appears on your social media feed, which is very easy to block, especially in mobile media where the majority of users employ ad blockers.

But the real crux of the matt er has t o do with intent. People aren’t on these media because they are looking for interesting ads. They are there to find out what’s going on with the people they are connected to, or read an article that’s of interest to them, or do research on something. So these ads are more an intrusion/disruption/irritation than they are anything else.

Same Holds True For Email

Most emails that come to you are part of some email marketing campaign. They usually go right into your junk folder and if you open them and see a link there, you automatically trash them, because it’s just as likely to contain some sort of malware as it would information about the product or service being sold.

As time has gone by in the evolution of the digital world, hacking techniques have evolved right along with everything else. This, in turn has made any sort of link based email advertising something to be highly suspicious of.

And at the end of the day, all this danger and risk only serves to work against those who are putting whatever percentage of their media bucks into this kind of marketing.

It’s All About The ROI

Now this is not to say that you will not pick up a lead or two or a customer or three. It all depends on what you are selling and what your core message happens to be. It also depends, to a great extent on where you actually put your message on the Internet, and that’s where it all gets really tricky and potentially hazardous to your brand.

But the bottom line is really simple. The creative and media bucks you spend here are supposed to generate profit for your business.

And if you are a service business and you do a little research into this, you will find that the vast majority of businesses who market in this way consider it more or a loss leader or necessary evil than they do an ROI generator.

Ahh…The Good Old Days

All of this risk can easily make you long for the days when the media choices you had before you were simple and measurable. When you had a good feel for the kinds of messaging that would work best and people on the other end of your messaging actually knew you were for real.

And that brings us right back around to the where I started here.

If you look old school marketing: radio, TV, direct mail, trade show advertising (both on and off line) print (especially magazines) and out of home media, you will see that while some areas of this advertising took a bit of a hit during the last decade or so, their numbers have slowly but surely climbed back and these media are growing more or less as their industry pundits predict.

This is a direct result of one very simple fact. They still work.

Of course, there is a certain amount of utility and perhaps even necessity to have an online presence, and there are certainly places in the 20% where your marketing efforts will be effective.

But the companies that succeed in today’s world are going to be the ones who really understand who their audience is, where their audience can be found and respect what the hell they are actually doing there.

Conventional or traditional advertising media have a history that is much deeper than digital media. Therefore more is known about how they work, who they reach and what is effective and what isn’t.

Digital marketing does not possess the same level of maturity, so it is still in the process of testing its way not developing key insights.

Trouble is that you are the one who is paying for the testing. And while the learning you may get from all of this activity can have some value valuable, you have to keep asking yourself all the way through the process if it’s really going to even cover its cost, or is this some sort of necessary loss leader process that everybody has to go through.

It’s something that’s worth having a good hard think about. And it’s also something that finding the right people, with a good mix of analogue and digital communication experience, to help you could be of great benefit.

Because surfing the waves can be exciting, but it’s also where the sharks are waiting.

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